Manhunt (law enforcement)
Encyclopedia
In law enforcement, a manhunt is a search for a dangerous fugitive
involving the use of all available police units and technology and sometimes help from the public.
A manhunt is conducted when the suspect believed to be responsible for a serious crime is at large, and is believed to be within a certain area. Any police units within reach of the area will then participate in the search, each covering various parts of the area. The officers will, if possible, form a perimeter around the area, guarding any and all possible escape routes from the containment.
A manhunt may have one of the following outcomes:
Also, if the fugitive resists and start a gunfight with the law enforcement officers, he or she may be killed by the officers.
, radio
, and other public media, by going door to door and asking individuals if they have seen the suspect, and by placing wanted poster
s in public places.
When this happens, citizens are advised not to personally confront the suspect, but rather to call police and report their sightings.
One type of manhunt into which the public is normally drawn is an AMBER Alert
. In an Amber Alert, the main purpose of the mission is to rescue the victim, ahead of the capture of the suspect. The public is usually given notice of an Amber Alert through additional forms of media, including highway overhead signs and text messaging
.
If anyone is found aiding the suspect in any way, such as help the suspect in hiding or providing false information to the police about the suspect may face legal consequences themselves or at worse be charged for the same crime of what the suspect did.
Fugitive
A fugitive is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from private slavery, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals...
involving the use of all available police units and technology and sometimes help from the public.
A manhunt is conducted when the suspect believed to be responsible for a serious crime is at large, and is believed to be within a certain area. Any police units within reach of the area will then participate in the search, each covering various parts of the area. The officers will, if possible, form a perimeter around the area, guarding any and all possible escape routes from the containment.
A manhunt may have one of the following outcomes:
- The successful capture of the suspect within the area of the manhunt
- Elusion from the area by the suspect, followed up with plans by other law enforcement agencies to search for the suspect elsewhere
- The search being called off, if police determine the chances of catching the suspect are minimal
Also, if the fugitive resists and start a gunfight with the law enforcement officers, he or she may be killed by the officers.
Fugitive manhunt agencies and organizations
- INTERPOL and fugitives
- US Marshals Service
- Federal Bureau of Investigation
- AFOSI
- FBI Hostage Rescue Team
- Royal Canadian Mounted PoliceRoyal Canadian Mounted PoliceThe Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
- Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) TeamsSWATA SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers...
- Texas Rangers (Department of Public Safety)
- The Academy Group
- America's Most Wanted
- Bounty hunterBounty hunterA bounty hunter captures fugitives for a monetary reward . Other names, mainly used in the United States, include bail enforcement agent and fugitive recovery agent.-Laws in the U.S.:...
- British Security Service (MI5)MI5The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
- Greater London Metropolitan PoliceMetropolitan Police ServiceThe Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...
Public Involvement
Sometimes, police departments conducting manhunts will solicit help from the public in locating their suspect. They will do this by broadcasting a description and other information on televisionTelevision
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
, radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
, and other public media, by going door to door and asking individuals if they have seen the suspect, and by placing wanted poster
Wanted poster
A wanted poster is a poster distributed to let the public know of an alleged criminal whom authorities wish to apprehend. They will generally include either a picture of the alleged criminal when a photograph is available, or of a facial composite image produced by a police artist...
s in public places.
When this happens, citizens are advised not to personally confront the suspect, but rather to call police and report their sightings.
One type of manhunt into which the public is normally drawn is an AMBER Alert
AMBER Alert
An AMBER Alert or a Child Abduction Emergency is a child abduction alert bulletin in several countries throughout the world, issued upon the suspected abduction of a child, since 1996...
. In an Amber Alert, the main purpose of the mission is to rescue the victim, ahead of the capture of the suspect. The public is usually given notice of an Amber Alert through additional forms of media, including highway overhead signs and text messaging
Text messaging
Text messaging, or texting, refers to the exchange of brief written text messages between fixed-line phone or mobile phone and fixed or portable devices over a network...
.
If anyone is found aiding the suspect in any way, such as help the suspect in hiding or providing false information to the police about the suspect may face legal consequences themselves or at worse be charged for the same crime of what the suspect did.
Notable manhunts
- Beltway sniper attacksBeltway sniper attacksThe Washington sniper attacks took place during three weeks in October 2002 in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Ten people were killed and three others critically injured in various locations throughout the Washington Metropolitan Area and along Interstate 95 in Virginia...
and search for John Allen MuhammadJohn Allen MuhammadJohn Allen Muhammad was a spree killer from the United States. He, along with his younger partner, Lee Boyd Malvo, carried out the 2002 Beltway sniper attacks, killing at least 10 people. Muhammad and Malvo were arrested in connection with the attacks on October 24, 2002, following tips from alert...
and Lee Boyd MalvoLee Boyd MalvoLee Boyd Malvo , is a spree killer convicted, along with John Allen Muhammad, of murders in connection with the Beltway sniper attacks, which took place in the Washington Metropolitan Area over a three-week period in October 2002... - Bojinka plot, (Abdul Hakim Murad (militant), Wali Khan Amin ShahWali Khan Amin ShahWali Khan Amin Shah was a man who had a role in the foiled Bojinka plot. He was convicted of terrorism, and has been imprisoned on these charges since 1995....
) - John Wilkes Booth
- John Herbert Dillinger
- Adolf EichmannAdolf EichmannAdolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
- The Green River Killer
- Adam Yahiye GadahnAdam Yahiye GadahnAdam Yahiye Gadahn is an American who is a senior operative, cultural interpreter, spokesman and media advisor for the Sunni islamist group Al-Qaeda. Since 2004, he appeared in a number of videos produced by Al-Qaeda as "Azzam the American"...
- Aribert HeimAribert HeimAribert Ferdinand Heim was an Austrian doctor, also known as Dr. Death. As an SS doctor in a Nazi concentration camp in Mauthausen, he is accused of killing and torturing many inmates by various methods, such as direct injections of toxic compounds into the hearts of his victims...
- Albert JohnsonAlbert Johnson (criminal)Albert Johnson, known as the Mad Trapper of Rat River, was a fugitive whose actions eventually sparked off a huge manhunt in the Northwest Territories and Yukon in Northern Canada...
- Josef MengeleJosef MengeleJosef Rudolf Mengele , also known as the Angel of Death was a German SS officer and a physician in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. He earned doctorates in anthropology from Munich University and in medicine from Frankfurt University...
- Joseph Palczynski
- Texas 7
- Jack UnterwegerJack UnterwegerJohann "Jack" Unterweger was an Austrian serial killer who murdered prostitutes in several countries. First convicted of a 1974 murder, he was released in 1990 due in part to a campaign by intellectuals and politicians, who regarded Unterweger as an example of rehabilitation...
- Robert VescoRobert VescoRobert Lee Vesco was a fugitive United States financier. After several years of high stakes investments and seedy credit dealings, Vesco was alleged guilty of securities fraud. He immediately fled the ensuing U.S...
- Zodiac KillerZodiac KillerThe Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer's identity remains unknown. The Zodiac murdered victims in Benicia, Vallejo, Lake Berryessa and San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969. Four men and three women...
- 1982 Chicago Tylenol murders1982 Chicago Tylenol murdersThe Chicago Tylenol murders occurred when seven people died after taking pain-relief medicine capsules that had been poisoned. The poisonings, code-named TYMURS by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, took place in late 1982 in the Chicago area of the United States.These poisonings involved...
- 1993 CIA shootings1993 CIA shootingsA firearm attack took place on January 25, 1993 near the entrance of Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia where two CIA employees were killed and three others wounded. The perpetrator, Aimal Qazi , shot CIA employees in their cars as they were waiting at a stoplight...
- 2001 anthrax attacks2001 anthrax attacksThe 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States, also known as Amerithrax from its Federal Bureau of Investigation case name, occurred over the course of several weeks beginning on Tuesday, September 18, 2001, one week after the September 11 attacks. Letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to...
- Maurice ClemmonsMaurice ClemmonsMaurice Clemmons was an American felon who was responsible for the November 29, 2009, murder of four police officers in Parkland, Washington...
, see also Lakewood shootings - Barry PrudomBarry PrudomBarry Peter Prudom was an English electrician and multiple murderer who became the subject of a police manhunt and what was at the time the largest armed police operation Great Britain had ever seen, involving 12 police forces. Prudom became a fugitive after killing Police Constable David Haigh on...
- Raoul Moat
Bombing suspects
- Abu Ali al-Harithi
- Centennial Olympic Park bombingCentennial Olympic Park bombingThe Centennial Olympic Park bombing was a terrorist bombing on July 27, 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States during the 1996 Summer Olympics, the first of four committed by Eric Robert Rudolph...
, (Eric Robert RudolphEric Robert RudolphEric Robert Rudolph , also known as the Olympic Park Bomber, is a criminal responsible for a series of bombings across the southern United States between 1996 and 1998, which killed two people and injured at least 150 others in the name of an anti-abortion and anti-gay agenda...
) - Theodore KaczynskiTheodore KaczynskiTheodore John "Ted" Kaczynski , also known as the "Unabomber" , is an American mathematician, social critic, anarcho-primitivist, and Neo-Luddite who engaged in a mail bombing campaign that spanned nearly 20 years, killing three people and injuring 23 others.Kaczynski was born in Chicago, Illinois,...
(Unabomber) - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
- Location of Osama bin LadenLocation of Osama bin LadenOsama bin Laden, the former leader of al-Qaeda, went into hiding following the start of the War in Afghanistan in order to avoid capture by the United States and its allies for his role in the September 11, 2001 attacks, and having been on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list since 1999...
- Oklahoma City bombingOklahoma City bombingThe Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. It was the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19...
, (Terry Nichols) - Investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103Investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103The investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 began at 19:03 on December 21, 1988 when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. The perpetrators had intended the plane to crash into the sea, destroying any traceable evidence, but the late departure...
- Pan Am Flight 73Pan Am Flight 73Pan Am Flight 73, a Pan American World Airways Boeing 747-121, was hijacked on September 5, 1986, while on the ground at Karachi, Pakistan, by four armed men of the Abu Nidal Organization...
, (Zayd Hassan Abd Al-Latif Masud Al Safarini) - Pan Am Flight 103Pan Am Flight 103Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways' third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from London Heathrow Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport...
- TWA Flight 847TWA Flight 847TWA Flight 847 was an international Trans World Airlines flight which was hijacked by Lebanese Shia extremists, later identified as members of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, on Friday morning, June 14, 1985, after originally taking off from Cairo. The flight was en route from Athens to Rome and then...
- 1993 World Trade Center bombing1993 World Trade Center bombingThe 1993 World Trade Center bombing occurred on February 26, 1993, when a truck bomb was detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 1,336 lb urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to knock the North Tower into the South Tower , bringing...
, (Ramzi YousefRamzi YousefRamzi Yousef was one of the main perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a co-conspirator in the Bojinka plot. In 1995, he was arrested at a guest house in Islamabad, by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence and United States Diplomatic Security Service, then extradited to the...
, Abdul Rahman YasinAbdul Rahman YasinAbdul Rahman Yasin helped make the bombs used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing attack. Yasin is of Iraqi heritage and grew up in Baghdad...
)
Prison escapees
- Mecklinburg Correctional Center escapees from Death Row
- Charles Victor ThompsonCharles Victor ThompsonCharles Victor Thompson is an American criminal. Sentenced to death for the murder of his ex-girlfriend and her lover in 1998, Thompson made headlines in 2005 by escaping from Harris County Jail in Houston, Texas after a parole meeting using a forged ID badge, claiming to be with the Attorney...
- Mas Selamat bin KastariMas Selamat bin KastariMas Selamat bin Kastari , an Indonesian-born Singaporean, was for more than a year Singapore's most-wanted fugitive after escaping from detention on 27 February 2008. The search for him has been described as the largest manhunt ever launched in Singapore...
- Radovan KaradzicRadovan KaradžicRadovan Karadžić is a former Bosnian Serb politician. He is detained in the United Nations Detention Unit of Scheveningen, accused of war crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during the Siege of Sarajevo, as well as ordering the Srebrenica massacre.Educated as a...
see Arrest of Radovan KaradžićArrest of Radovan KaradžicRadovan Karadžić was arrested in Belgrade and extradited into International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia custody in The Hague in July 2008, as the 44th Serb/Montenegrin suspect sent to The Hague.... - Ratko MladicRatko MladićRatko Mladić is an accused war criminal and a former Bosnian Serb military leader. On May 31, 2011, Mladić was extradited to The Hague, where he was processed at the detention center that holds suspects for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia...
- Goran HadzicGoran HadžicGoran Hadžić is a former president of the Republic of Serbian Krajina who was in office during the Croatian War of Independence. He is accused of crimes against humanity and of violation of the laws and customs of war by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.The court...
- Ante GotovinaAnte GotovinaAnte Gotovina is a former Senior Corporal of the French Foreign Legion and former Lieutenant General of the Croatian Army who served in the Croatian War for Independence...
- Aafia SiddiquiAafia SiddiquiAafia Siddiqui is an American-educated Pakistani cognitive neuroscientist who was convicted of assault with intent to murder her U.S. interrogators in Afghanistan. The charges carried a maximum sentence of life in prison; in September 2010, she was sentenced by a United States district court to 86...
- Clark RockefellerClark RockefellerChristian Karl Gerhartsreiter is a German man who moved to the United States as a teenager to study, and thereafter assumed many aliases. Using the false name Clark Rockefeller, he married a Harvard Business School graduate student named Sandra Boss...
- 2010 jail break in Mohave County, Arizona2010 jail break in Mohave County, ArizonaOn July 30, 2010, three inmates — Tracy Province, Daniel Renwick, and John McCluskey — escaped from the Kingman Arizona State Prison, a for-profit medium security prison, owned by the Mohave County Industrial Development Authority and operated by Utah's Management & Training Corporation. A female...
- Operation CreviceOperation CreviceOperation Crevice was a raid launched by Metropolitan and local police in England on the morning of 30 March 2004. It was in response to a report indicating cells of terrorists of Pakistani origin were operating in the Thames Valley, Sussex, Surrey and Bedfordshire areas, the source of which was...
- Operation KratosOperation KratosOperation Kratos referred to tactics developed by London's Metropolitan Police Service for dealing with suspected suicide bombers, most notably firing shots to the head without warning....
- Project Coronado targeted members of La Familia Michoacana drug cartel. On October 22, 2009, U.S. federal authorities announced the results of a four-year investigation into the operations of La Familia Michoacana in the United States dubbed Project Coronado. It was the largest U.S. raid ever against Mexican drug cartelsMexican Drug WarThe Mexican Drug War is an ongoing armed conflict taking place among rival drug cartels who fight each other for regional control, and Mexican government forces who seek to combat drug trafficking. However, the government's principal goal has been to put down the drug-related violence that was...
operating in the U.S. In more than 19 different states, 303 individuals were taken into custody in a coordinated effort by local, state, and federal law enforcement over a two-day period.
Famous fictional manhunts
- The Federal manhunt for George Foyet in the FBI Crime Drama Criminal MindsCriminal MindsCriminal Minds is an American police procedural drama that premiered September 22, 2005, on CBS. The series follows a team of profilers from the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit based in Quantico, Virginia. The BAU is part of the FBI National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime...
- The national manhunt for John Thomas Macarill in the novela Paint it Black by Vincent McConnell
- The manhunt for an assassin known as The JackalCarlos the JackalIlich Ramírez Sánchez , better known as Carlos the Jackal, is a Venezuelan pro-Palestinian currently serving a life sentence in France for shooting to death two French secret agents and a Lebanese informer in 1975....
in Frederick ForsythFrederick ForsythFrederick Forsyth, CBE is an English author and occasional political commentator. He is best known for thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Fourth Protocol, The Dogs of War, The Devil's Alternative, The Fist of God, Icon, The Veteran, Avenger, The Afghan and The Cobra.-...
's novel The Day of the JackalThe Day of the JackalThe Day of the Jackal is a thriller novel by English writer Frederick Forsyth, about a professional assassin who is contracted by the OAS, a French terrorist group of the early 1960s, to kill Charles de Gaulle, the President of France....
. - The cross-country manhunt for the Fox River 8 in the second season of Prison BreakPrison BreakPrison Break is an American television serial drama created by Paul Scheuring, that was broadcast on the Fox Broadcasting Company for four seasons, from 2005 until 2009. The series revolves around two brothers; one has been sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit, and the other devises an...
. - The state-wide manhunt for Dr. Richard Kimble in The FugitiveThe Fugitive (1993 film)The Fugitive is a 1993 American thriller film based on the television series of the same name. The film was directed by Andrew Davis and stars Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. The film was one of the few movies associated with a television series to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best...
. - The manhunt for Robert "Butch" Haynes (Kevin Costner) in Clint Eastwood's "A Perfect WorldA Perfect WorldA Perfect World is a 1993 drama film directed by Clint Eastwood, and starring Kevin Costner as an escaped convict who befriends a young boy , and ends up embarking on a road trip with the child...
" (1993). - The cross-country manhunt for Mark Schereden in U.S. MarshalsU.S. Marshals (film)U.S. Marshals is a 1998 action thriller film starring Tommy Lee Jones and Wesley Snipes, and a sequel to The Fugitive. The storyline of U.S. Marshals does not feature the character Dr. Richard Kimble; the role of the protagonist has been passed onto Samuel Gerard and his team of U.S...
. - The manhunt throughout CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
for Adrian MonkAdrian MonkAdrian Monk is a fictional character portrayed by Tony Shalhoub and the protagonist of the USA Network television series Monk. He is a renowned former homicide detective for the San Francisco Police Department...
in the MonkMonk (TV series)Monk is an American comedy-drama detective mystery television series created by Andy Breckman and starring Tony Shalhoub as the titular character, Adrian Monk. It originally ran from 2002 to 2009 and is primarily a mystery series, although it has dark and comic touches.The series debuted on July...
episode "Mr. Monk Is On The Run." - The city-wide manhunt for Henry Darius in the CSI: NYCSI: NYCSI: NY is an American police procedural television series that premiered on September 22, 2004, on CBS. The show follows the investigations of a team of NYPD forensic scientists and police officers as they unveil the circumstances behind mysterious and unusual deaths as well as other crimes...
episode "Manhattan Manhunt." - The nationwide manhunt for Francis DolarhydeFrancis DolarhydeFrancis Dolarhyde is a fictional character and the main antagonist featured in the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon.-Character overview:Dolarhyde is a serial killer nicknamed "The Tooth-Fairy" due to his tendency to bite his victims' bodies, the uncommon size and sharpness of his teeth and other...
in ManhunterManhunter (film)Manhunter is a 1986 American thriller film based on Thomas Harris's novel Red Dragon. Written and directed by Michael Mann, it stars William Petersen as Will Graham and features Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecktor...
(1986) and Red DragonRed Dragon (film)Red Dragon is a 2002 thriller film based on Thomas Harris' novel of the same name and featuring psychiatrist and serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter. It is a prequel to The Silence of the Lambs....
(2002). - The international manhunt for Dr. Hannibal Lector in both The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal.
- The manhunt for escaped prisoner/wizard Sirius BlackSirius BlackSirius Black is a fictional character in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Sirius was first mentioned briefly in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as a wizard who lent Rubeus Hagrid a flying motorbike shortly after Lord Voldemort killed James and Lily Potter...
in the Harry PotterHarry PotterHarry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
book Harry Potter and the Prisoner of AzkabanHarry Potter and the Prisoner of AzkabanHarry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling. The book was published on 8 July 1999. The novel won the 1999 Whitbread Book Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the 2000 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and was short-listed for other...
. - The cross-country manhunts for Benjamin Gates in the films National TreasureNational treasureThe idea of national treasure, like national epics and national anthems, is part of the language of Romantic nationalism, which arose in the late 18th century and 19th centuries. Nationalism is an ideology which supports the nation as the fundamental unit of human social life, which includes shared...
, after he stole the Declaration of IndependenceDeclaration of independenceA declaration of independence is an assertion of the independence of an aspiring state or states. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another nation or failed nation, or are breakaway territories from within the larger state...
, and National Treasure: Book of Secrets, after he kidnapped the President of the United StatesPresident of the United StatesThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
.
See also
- InterpolInterpolInterpol, whose full name is the International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL, is an organization facilitating international police cooperation...
- Manhunt (military)Manhunt (military)Manhunting is the deliberate identification, capturing, or killing of senior or otherwise important enemy combatants, classified as high-value targets, usually by special operations forces and intelligence organizations...
- List of murderers by number of victims
- War crimeWar crimeWar crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...
- Bounty hunterBounty hunterA bounty hunter captures fugitives for a monetary reward . Other names, mainly used in the United States, include bail enforcement agent and fugitive recovery agent.-Laws in the U.S.:...
- Deadly forceDeadly forceDeadly force, as defined by the United States Armed Forces, is the force which a person uses, causing—or that a person knows, or should know, would create a substantial risk of causing—death or serious bodily harm...
- Lone wolf (terrorism)
- Mexican drug warMexican Drug WarThe Mexican Drug War is an ongoing armed conflict taking place among rival drug cartels who fight each other for regional control, and Mexican government forces who seek to combat drug trafficking. However, the government's principal goal has been to put down the drug-related violence that was...